Grief of a Father's Love
by Cotto
Summary: Some of Giles' worries at the idiotic antics of his adopted stepdaughter, Kennedy, prior to their moving to Sunnydale, Ca… as a sounding out for a buddy of mine online, and also to aid me in producing a gentler story than I'm used to writing. I usually produce very dark stuff indeed; this's to be a break from that.


**Grief of a Father's Love.**

 _ **By James Carmody.**_

 **Disclaimer:** _I forego any financial recompense for this story_ _written into the Buffy the Vampire Slayer storyline by Joss Whedon, and that universe._

 **Characters:** _Rupert Giles, Kennedy, First Evil._

 **Pairing(s):** _Rupert Giles/Kennedy (perhaps clearer: Rupert Giles & Kennedy actually), but also First Evil/Kennedy (adversarial) and Rupert Giles/First Evil (adversarial in many different methods)._

 **Summary:** _Some of Giles' worries at the idiotic antics of his adopted stepdaughter, Kennedy,_ _prior to their moving to Sunnydale, Ca… as a sounding out for a buddy of mine online, and also to aid me in producing a gentler story than I'm used to writing. I usually produce very dark stuff indeed; this's to be a break from that._

 **Rating:** _Pretty much PG/Teen, it's a gentle one, but some dumb and criminal things go on in it._

 **Genre(s):** _Family, Friendship, Drama, Crime, and Action/Adventure._

 **Setting:** _Pre-Season 1 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, takes place in England, so the terms will be a bit different- Oh, and to my Brit colleagues: I'm not that familiar with your dialect of our language, so please do both forgive me any blunders but also inform me of them, okay? I beg you._

 **Chapter 1.): "What Happened, Exactly?"**

Rupert Giles was nervously awaiting his adopted stepdaughter's arrival home, she'd gone out around town with some friends of hers, well "friends" was a stretch, these football crooks, really- bad fans of the sport the Yanks often refer to as "soccer" were a horrible example for his young daughter, as they often got her into trouble, sometimes idiotic antics like keying cars, or putting toiletpaper all over someone's lawn, that sort of criminal activity. As she was out all hours tonight, he was deeply worried, it was one thing she was trained in fighting, that was fine by him, so long as she used it to defend herself and her neighbors, that was okay… but when she engages in criminal antics like vandalism, or a drinking binge, he was scared for her. He well remembered his studies in Oxford, some of which involved to some degree or another religious history- in there lurked a true monster, however, a monster who made men like Stalin and Mao pale in comparison, same with Al Capone, all those men were small potatoes, as the Americans were known to say, compared to their master, the First Evil, a being best thought of as "Lucifer". And it was that "Red Tsar" that scared him, if that fallen spirit got involved with his little girl, or his own master, Eyeghon, the results would be catastrophic. This was far from abnormal in any way whatsoever: any dad would do whatever he could to keep his child safe- this was a perfectly normal drive intrinsic to the human male: keep children safe, especially your own, but others' too. Perhaps that's why he considered enrolling as some form of a teacher; deep in his mind that job option was rummaging around in his noggin, and wouldn't let go, and maybe he should go for it. Nobility was effectively dying out, it had been ever since the rise of republics, he was of England's aristocracy- born into it in fact, but a good many of his social peers went into some form of regular gainful employment- careers… and the reason for that was to ensure the providing for their families and themselves. He was no different than any other amongst them in that regard. Tonight, however, it was late, and his child, Kennedy, had taken off with her "buddies" and was who knows where doing who knows what with who knows whom! Hence his worry.

He knew his child was prone to rebellion, had been for quite a while in fact; he privately wondered if her rebelliousness was due to having been orphaned… he knew her before that, however, as he'd been her "watcher", a type of guardian/mentor who trained a young lady to stand up for herself against the agents of darkness, but what if your "charge" goes off and starts hanging out with the wrong crowd? That was the problem, it'd not be much of a problem, however, short of how to wheedle her away from that sinful crowd and into her studies- he knew she preferred girls, had for years in fact, and it was something of a problem for the two of them- not the orientation, but it in fact wouldn't be that much of a difficulty with her gaining sanctity (another goal of his), but for the tendency of the world to savagely mislead pretty much everybody into lifestyles that the past would see as overtly impure, especially girls who preferred girls- those were under particular danger, and as a dad to one… this was a big fear of his. You see, he loved her, and wanted her safe from anything that could harm her, but there were other things that were going on….

About 11:50pm the phone rang; it was the constable's office, it turns out that Kennedy had been picked up after some incident at a pub- she was way too young to be drinking, hence his freakout, internal, of course! She was only about fifteen and a half, for crying out loud; bordering on losing control of his tongue for the first time in he didn't know how long, he headed for the door, grabbing his jacket from the hanger as he did so- eager to find out what had happened and how it'd happened, especially to get Miss Giles' statement and to get her straightened out from this stupid course her life was set on!

Getting into his car's right side, he drove to the constable's station in Baath, England, his home settlement, to find out what'd happened, and after arriving there, he was escorted to the juvenile detention area, where his teen adopted daughter lay resting on a bunk, reading a detective novel, calmly. He marveled at how level-headed she was in this crisis, and was baffled by how calm she was, her hair had a clip to one side of her head in her long straight black locks, and she was wearing her jacket- oh, they'd searched her, he knew it, but children are and should be treated differently than adults in prison, and she was in the holding area, not actual "prison" prison, but in an area where suspects were held… he also marveled at how civil-minded these teen children, criminals, he reminded himself, were, especially towards oneanother… much of their offenses would've been petty offenses, not the overtly really bad, horribly violent, stuff of hardened adult criminals- these were amateurs in the art of badness, if you please- so their antics, while bad, were effectively nothing.

He recalled that she'd been reading that novel prior to leaving the home to attend a football game; now a plan dawned on him: ladies youth football- that might get her to behave as a young lady, instead of a teen criminal who's headed for jail for the bulk of her young life. Putting his right fist to his mouth, he coughed slightly to get her attention, he noticed she was wearing some small pearl earings, kind of a stud pearl earing, and was relaxing while facing away from him, with her legs up, feet flat on the bed's top, her everyday clothes were on, a pair of slacks or trousers, some girls boot-shoes, and he remembered she was wearing a blouse, with her favorite "key necklace" she usually wore.

He remembered that sometimes unusual strength came out in her, and privately he wondered if it was some form of an extension of her Baptism, for sometimes He, the Holy Spirit, Rupert recalled, showed up in peculiar ways- He never leaves, either, but can be "muffled" by our misbehavior, if we so choose; and he was worried for his teen daughter for that reason- this "crowd" she hangs around with were rooted in the hedonistic lifestyles of evil-doers, and that'd likely poison her soul… as someone who'd rebelled in his own younger years, he knew well about the dangers of spiritual rebellion, and bad associations- it was only the death of a friend of his during some form of occult ritual that had turned him back to behaving himself, that fear of Hell had so terrified him that he ran straight into behaving himself and never looked back- when he met the demon they'd been "playing with", he got so scared of it that he swore he never wanted anything to do with that kind of nonsense again… Eyeghon had failed to snag him, he thought and believed, but he never wanted his child in such danger!

But the predator had gotten someone, it'd snagged Randal, and Randal's soul likely dwelt in Hell to this very day, thanks to dying in a form of occult ritual- they'd been bad kids, and someone had died for their foolishness, oh, they'd been brave, but idiotic; they should've gotten a Priest, they should've turned themselves in and contacted a Bishop for crying out loud, they even should've tried to enrage the demon by praying even the Lord's prayer, the "Our Father", or some other prayer the laity can and ought to pray, but in their pride and foolishness, they'd panicked, and like foolish children, they'd tried to fight off something too strong for them, and their friend, Randal, was taken to Hell for their stupidity- course, Randal himself had engaged in it willingly, and that was the dumbest thing he could've done, all things considering. Sadly, he remembered they were addicted to the pleasures the demons give to keep their, well, slaves, in line with them- and they all had to live with the scars of meeting a true monster!

He marveled at God's mercy, for as he'd been essentially a gangster who'd been redeemed by his Maker's intervention, partly employing his grandmother among other means, he now worried that his daughter was also going into a gang, but so had others- gangs often made monsters, men like Iosef Visgoronivich, who also went by Koba and later on, the terrifying name he went by later on in life, that of Josef Stalin, had drifted into gangs- that man's was referred to by its members as "Bolshavism" or, as sometimes referred to by the terms "the Party" or "the people"- Rupert had wanted to fight them in his younger years, but life directed a different "front" for him to put his attentions: that of the spiritual.

He remembered that in the past of the Watchers' Council had been in league with the Vatican in many different matters, often aiding in the Inquisition in tracking down those engaged in error, aiming to correct them, lest they stay in error and be lost to Perdition. The biggest tragedy to occur to that organization, or this native nation, was in fact Henry VIII's dumb decision to attempt to end his marriage, and also to cheat on his wife- a little "romantic stupidity" was all it took to effectively perminantly damage a nation for the foreseeable remains of the existence of the Earth… and then Henry Tudor got it in his royal head to start slaughtering his friends- all those who stood up to him in that regard, the catastrophe for England had been horrendous. Most Protestants weren't all that different from their Catholic "kin" as any knowing Christian would conclude, left to their devices of reason and intellect, as well as the faith that most people have nothing to gain by lying to you, but when you factor in that there's a true preternatural monster lurking around the corner seeking to bring you to error- however hampered it is by its Maker- then you understand how it is that so many errors could've come about. As he gazed at his little girl laying there, with the top of her head closest to him, he marveled at these elements of reality.

Not sure if she'd heard him, he coughed again into his right fist, and this time he saw her jump slightly; it helped when some girl he didn't know said, while leaning against the brick wall of their cell "Hey, Kenn, your dad's here, I think."- it was something in the mannerisms he showed, especially proven when he said "Kenn, get your gear… I'm taking you home." At about the same time as that teen in the blue jeans and the sweatshirt told her that he was standing back there trying to get her to come and wake up that he was there. As it was late, or very early actually, Friday night, he planned to do some errands with her to aid in realigning her to be redirected into behaving herself in the very near future, that being tomorrow, but for now, it was time for the two of them to get home and to get ready for bed. Rupert promised himself, and Kennedy, that there'd be some changes around here in the very immediate future, but for now, it was time to take things one step at a time…

 **Author's Notes End Chapter 1.):** _To Be Continued, oh, and .Dawn, what do you think of this- it kind of got sidetracked by the characters, but I hope you enjoy it- I love hearing your ideas that inspire me to write these!_


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